Explore some of our most anticipated new releases for August
This month: A pocket-sized citizen’s guide on how to fight disinformation; a science fiction satire set in near-future England; a history of America’s trail-blazing female science journalists; and more. Explore these books and a selection of our other new and soon-to-be-released titles below.
Sharing Our Science: How to Write and Speak STEM by Brandon R. Brown
In Sharing Our Science, scientist-turned-writing teacher Brandon Brown offers an eminently useful guidebook for STEM practitioners looking to communicate their technical work to either a technical or a broader audience. Professionals are increasingly required to communicate their work through blogs, podcasts, and newsletters and to submit to traditional media. After seeing his colleagues struggle to find a writing guide that tackled the unique challenges of writing and speaking about scientific topics, Brown set out to write the definitive handbook to assist STEM students, scientists, engineers, and tech workers alike.
“I wish I had read this book 30 years ago.” —Douglas Koshland, University of California, Berkeley; President, The Science Communication Lab
You might also like Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing by Martin Erwig
Writing for Their Lives: America’s Pioneering Female Science Journalists by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette
Writing for Their Lives tells the stories of women who pioneered the nascent profession of science journalism from the 1920s through the 1950s. Like the “hidden figures” of science, such as Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson, these women journalists, Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette writes, were also overlooked in traditional histories of science and journalism. But, at a time when science, medicine, and the mass media were expanding dramatically, Emma Reh, Jane Stafford, Marjorie Van de Water, and many others were explaining theories, discoveries, and medical advances to millions of readers via syndicated news stories, weekly columns, weekend features, and books—and they deserve the recognition they have long been denied.
“With wit, sharp analysis, and compelling documentation, Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette reveals the multi-dimensional lives of tough-minded and doggedly persistent women in science journalism between the 1920s and the 1960s.” —Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, University of Minnesota; author of Women, Gender, and Science
You might also like More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech by Meredith Broussard
On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy by Lee McIntyre
The effort to destroy facts and make America ungovernable didn’t come out of nowhere. It is the culmination of seventy years of strategic denialism. In On Disinformation, Lee McIntyre shows how the war on facts began, and how ordinary citizens can fight back against the scourge of disinformation that is now threatening the very fabric of our society. Drawing on his twenty years of experience as a scholar of science denial, McIntyre explains how autocrats wield disinformation to manipulate a populace and deny obvious realities, why the best way to combat disinformation is to disrupt its spread, and most importantly, how we can win the war on truth.
“This brief but impactful book offers trenchant commentary on the current war on truth and workable solutions to protect democracy in an increasingly chaotic world… Thoughtful and illuminating.” —Kirkus Reviews
You might also like Post-Truth by Lee McIntyre
The Age of Prediction: Algorithms, AI, and the Shifting Shadows of Risk by Igor Tulchinsky and Christopher E. Mason
The Age of Prediction is about two powerful, and symbiotic, trends: the rapid development and use of artificial intelligence and big data to enhance prediction, as well as the often paradoxical effects of these better predictions on our understanding of risk and the ways we live. Beginning with dramatic advances in quantitative investing and precision medicine, this book explores how predictive technology is quietly reshaping our world in fundamental ways, from crime fighting and warfare to monitoring individual health and elections.
“At the dawn of what they aptly call ‘the Age of Prediction,’ Tulchinsky and Mason give us an exceptionally clear view of the interplay between risk and uncertainty—a guide for what’s to come.” —Alyssa Goodman, Harvard University; Founder, The Prediction Project
You might also like Democratizing Our Data: A Manifesto by Julia Lane
Design for Resilience: Making the Future We Leave Behind by Stuart Walker
Design for Resilience is a timely, visionary map for creating restorative design that addresses humanity’s most critical issue: climate change. Our current wealth-oriented economic systems have resulted in gross disparities, war, refugee crises, and mass migrations that augur a bleak collective future. In this book, respected scholar Stuart Walker combines formidable research with practical examples to offer a hopeful, original, and transformative view of what resilient design looks like and how it can apply to all aspects of life, from personal objects to food to culture to business to recreation.
“Stuart Walker’s new book is a must—and not only for designers. It truly offers actionable hope for a future that lasts for everyone.” —Karl Stocker, University of Graz; coauthor of Designing Sustainable Cities
You might also like The New Designer: Rejecting Myths, Embracing Change by Manuel Lima
Explaining Life through Evolution by Prosanta Chakrabarty
Explaining Life through Evolution tells the origin story of life on this planet and how we arrived at the tremendous diversity among organisms that we see around us today. Prosanta Chakrabarty explains evolution in a concise, accessible, and engaging way, emphasizing the importance of understanding evolution in everyday contemporary life. Weaving his own lived experience among discussions of Darwin and the origins of evolutionary thought, Chakrabarty also covers key concepts to our understanding of our current condition, including mutation; the spectrum of race, sex, gender, and sexuality; the limitations of ancestry tests; and the evolution of viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the virus at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Chakrabarty gives a well-informed account that should refresh the knowledge of curious readers and convince those with open minds.” —Kirkus Reviews
You might also like A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions by Thom van Dooren
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
When Auberon Quin, a prankster nostalgic for Merrie Olde England, becomes king of that country in 1984, he mandates that each of London’s neighborhoods become an independent state, complete with unique local costumes. Everyone goes along with the conceit until young Adam Wayne, a born military tactician, takes the game too seriously… and becomes the Napoleon of Notting Hill. War ensues throughout the city—fought with sword and halberd!
“More modern than the moderns, more medieval than the medievalists, funnier than all of them—reading Chesterton today is like watching someone give a speech of unimpeachable common sense from the bridge of a departing UFO.” —The Atlantic
You might also like The Night Land, Abridged Edition by William Hope Hodgson